James Chase - You've Got It Coming

“Yeah,” Harry said. He would have given a lot to have put his fingers around her white throat and squeezed the life out of her. “I know how you feel, but it's going to be all right.”

He watched her get into bed, then he hurriedly undressed, put on his pyjamas and got into the other bed.

“Good night, Glorie,” he said as he reached for the light switch. “It's going to be all right.”

“Yes, Harry.”

He turned off the light. Darkness pressed in on him. He lay still, his mind active. It hadn't been as easy as he had hoped, but at least she had agreed to leave Miami, and that was vital to his plan. He would have to be very careful how he handled her in the morning. By tomorrow night, with any luck, he would be free of her for good, free to go ahead with his plans and, more important still, free to meet Joan again, and this time in safety.

It was a long time before Harry fell asleep. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, as the faint light of the rising sun came through the blind, he was awakened by a sound that chilled him.

It was the sound of Glorie weeping.

III

Soon after eleven o'clock the next morning, Harry completed the purchase of a 1945 Buick saloon. He drove the car to a parking lot in the centre of the town. Then he set out on foot in search of a hardware store which he found a hundred yards or so up the road. He bought a short-handled shovel and had the salesman wrap it in brown paper. He returned to the car and locked the shovel in the boot.

Fifteen yards or so behind him, Borg moved after him. The significance of the shovel was not lost on him. Having heard Glorie's terms and Harry's apparent capitulation, he had already guessed that Harry planned to wipe Glorie out. The shovel confirmed his guess. He watched Harry take a heavy wrench from the tool kit of the car and conceal it in the pocket of the driver's door. He then got into the car and drove back to the motel.

Knowing the direction he intended to take, Borg didn't follow him. He drove in his car to a side road on the main highway and settled down to wait.

Harry found Glorie closing her suitcase. She had already packed.

“Come and see what I've bought,” he said, “and tell me if you approve.” Somehow he managed to make his voice Sound friendly and he noticed her reaction. Her face brightened as she came to the door.

Together they inspected the car.

“It'll do to get on with,” he said. “There's plenty of room. When we hit the jackpot we'll get something better.”

“I think it's fine,” she said.

He watched her turn the handle on the boot and try to open it.

“The lock's busted,” he said. “The guy who sold me the car offered to put it right, but I didn't want to wait. We can put the suitcases on the back seat.”

He brought the cases out and put them in the car.

“I guess that's all. Did you settle up here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, fine, then we can get off.”

She went back into the cabin for her handbag and hat. He stood in the doorway, watching her while she put her hat on and tucked up her dark hair. She looked suddenly over her shoulder at him.

“You're not angry with me anymore, Harry?”

He forced a smile.

“No, I’m not angry. Let's forget it, shall we?”

“You do see why I . . .”

“Let's forget it,” he said. He knew this was his cue to go to her and take her in his arms, but knowing what he was going to do to her made such a move impossible. “Well, come on, baby, let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

She followed him out to the car. He slid under the driving wheel as she went around to the far door. He started the engine.

“It should be a pretty good trip,” he said, as he engaged gear.

“We have some fine country to go through. We'll spend the night at Tampa. I've always wanted to go there. That's where they make cigars and can rattlesnakes.”

He talked on as he drove swiftly along the broad U.S.27, heading for the Everglades National Park. And as he talked, giving Glorie bits of information he had picked up about the district, he felt sure she was relaxing. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, he saw she had lost the scraped, bony look and she seemed more her old self.

They drove for an hour before they hit the road that cut through the lonely primeval swamp land, and they passed Borg, sitting patiently in his car, without noticing him. Soon they were running alongside Tamiami canal.

On the highway lay the mangled bodies of raccoons and snakes that had crawled out of the swamp to sleep on the warm road and had been caught by the early morning traffic. Flocks of yellow-headed, red-cheeked buzzards were gorging themselves on the corpses. It was only when the Buick was nearly on them that they flew croaking out of the way.

Glorie hunched her shoulders with a shiver.

“It's horrible, isn't it?” '

“Yeah,” Harry said, “but it's nature. I guess the snakes were suckers to come out on the road and get run over.”

He was thinking of the buzzards. There was no need to have brought the shovel. In an hour or so there would be nothing left of Glorie except her bones if he left her body in the undergrowth.

He felt a cold trickle of sweat down his back. He had planned to knock her on the head and bury her somewhere along the coast road to Naples, but this seemed easier.

There was fast-moving traffic at the moment, but if he was quick, timed it right, he could stun her with the wrench, wait until there was no traffic in sight, then carry her across the road into the forest. He needn't carry her far; just out of sight of the road, and then leave her to the buzzards.

He looked in his driving mirror. There was a car coming, but behind the car he could see a long stretch of empty road. He looked ahead. Apart from a truck that was toiling along about a quarter of a mile away, there was no other traffic.

He slowed down, letting the car pass him. It was travelling at a high speed, and it went past with a swish and a rush of air “Do you hear that knocking?” he said. “Something's loose at the back.”

“I didn't hear anything.”

He had slowed to a crawl. The truck was coming up faster now it had crested the slope. It would be on him before he could do anything, and he cursed silently. He glanced in the driving mirror again. The road behind him was empty.

“Maybe I was mistaken.”

He had trouble in keeping his voice steady. Sweat beaded his forehead and his heart was hammering. He shoved his foot down hard on the gas pedal and sent the car surging forward so as to meet and pass the truck.

The truck went past and thundered on down the road. A quick glance behind and a look ahead told him the road was now empty for at least a quarter of a mile either way. He trod down hard on the foot brake and pulled up by the side of the road.

The steamy heat and the smell of decaying vegetation came out of the forest of cypress and palmetto trees.

“Have a look at the back, will you? It sounds as if the bumper has come adrift.”

She opened the door.

“I didn't hear anything, Harry.”

“Well, look, will you?”

He found his voice was shooting up and he throttled it back just in time. His hand slid into the pocket of the door and his fingers closed around the wrench. He opened his door as Glorie got out on to the hot road and went around to the back of the car.

This was it, he thought, one quick blow, then he'd pick her up and rush her into the undergrowth. He could finish her there.

He kept the wrench hidden behind his back as he went around the car.

“There's nothing loose,” Glorie said. “I think you imagined it, Harry.”

She was facing him, looking right at him. He couldn't meet her gaze. He bent over the bumper and pushed it.